Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson to announce mayoral bid decision next month

Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson is yet to say whether she'll challenge sitting mayor Wayne Brown for the city's top job at local body elections in October. Photo / Jason Oxenham

• Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson will announce next month if she’ll challenge sitting mayor Wayne Brown.
• Speculation arose after Simpson’s son registered the domain desleyformayor.co.nz last year.
• Whau councillor Kerrin Leoni has also announced her candidacy, aiming to be the first Māori mayor.

Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson will reveal within weeks whether she’ll challenge sitting mayor Wayne Brown for leadership of the Super City at this year’s local body elections.

The Ōrākei councillor has allowed speculation to build that she might run against Brown, who announced in February he would seek re-election in October.

But the three-term councillor is yet to make an announcement either way.

Simpson said she’ll announce her decision early next month, Herald senior writer Simon Wilson wrote in his Love this City column today.

“Timing that works for me”, she said.

In response to Wilson’s most recent query – yesterday – on her plans, Simpson said with a smile: “You’ll be surprised”.

Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson and Mayor Wayne Brown at the inauguration of the current Auckland Council in 2022. Photo / Jay Farnworth

The longtime National Party member’s potential interest in leading the city first came to public attention in January, when the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance revealed the domain desleyformayor.co.nz had been registered by her son last year.

Simpson told the Herald her son registered the domain at Christmas “as a bit of a laugh”.

“It doesn’t mean I’m doing it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not doing it either.”

Brown said at the time he’d heard about the website “very recently” and hadn’t spoken to Simpson yet.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown landed in hot water over a comment about his deputy Desley Simpson and Lamborghinis this year. Photo / NZ Herald

In April, the mayor apologised to Simpson after telling Wilson all his deputy “thinks about is how to help people buying their next Lamborghini”.

The Ōrākei ward includes the wealthy eastern suburbs of Remuera, Kohimarama and St Heliers.

Brown chose Simpson as his deputy when he won the mayoral election in 2022, but they are understood to no longer be close, Wilson wrote in April.

After the deadly Auckland Anniversary weekend floods in 2023, Brown stayed behind the scenes as Simpson fronted the council response.

Then-Herald writer Steve Braunias wrote at the time that Brown had “become the vacuum to his deputy mayor’s power: the one person we have been able to look to for an example of leadership and strength… She’s fronted. She’s stood up”.

A Rod Emmerson cartoon published on the first anniversary of the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods depicting his view of the roles of Wayne Brown and Desley Simpson in the aftermath of the disaster.

Brown said the media hadn’t been his focus with Simpson doing some of that work while he was out with building inspectors and geotechnical engineers, visiting broken bridges and picking up rubbish with the student volunteer army and Navy groups.

“I’ve been on the ground.”

Along with Brown, Whau councillor and Labour Party member Kerrin Leoni has announced she will stand for the mayoralty in October.

She wanted to be the first Māori mayor of the Super City, said Leoni, who is Ngāti Paoa, Ngāitakoto and Ngati Kuri.

Local body candidate nominations open on July 4 and close on August 1, with postal voting in September and early October, according to Vote Auckland.